Three “Positioning Questions” to Answer BEFORE Starting Succession Planning

Succession planning is like running a marathon. It takes a long time to prepare, run, and eventually reach the end of the race. To do so successfully requires continuous focus and dedication.

When I work with clients, I want to know what their “position” is on three things before we get started on succession planning. If a company doesn’t have the stamina to make it to the end of the marathon, it’s better if we don’t start at all. So when I ask these three questions, it gives me an idea as to whether or not the company has the commitment and the stamina to go the distance. I need to suss out – does the C-suite, as an entity, recognize that succession planning is a critical initiative and will they commit the time, the resources, and the attention necessary to make sure it is successful?

Here are a few of the questions I ask to determine their commitment and focus.

Question 1

Question number one is “What if you don’t do anything?”

I usually ask this at the end of my vetting process, after we’ve talked through many concerns and people have realized what successful succession planning really entails. This question is their “out.” I ask, if we don’t do anything…

·        What would the future look like? What would be the strategy going forward?

·        If you don’t prepare and promote from within, are you okay with hiring senior executives from outside the organization?

·        Would you be okay with closing the doors and simply saying, “Hey, we had a good run, but the owner would like to retire now.”

Many, many companies end the way of the last bullet, above. There is certainly the option to not do succession planning – so “what if you don’t do anything?” determines if the company wants to control its destiny or address leadership changes as they come.

Question 2

The second position question is: Which departments are most important? This one generally gets people up in arms. The response is often, “What?! We don’t have a department that’s more important than any others… and that’s absolutely NOT true. If you’re in pharma, R+D is your most important department, followed closely by sales, right? You have to have something to sell, and you have to have people who sell it. In pharma, the most important departments are R+D and sales. Every company has a few departments that are critical to organizational survival. If they go down... the whole place goes down.

If a client doesn’t have the focus or the money to plan successors across the board, then I ask which departments are the most important and most crucial, and we concentrate on those. We’re still going to make a huge difference to the success and longevity of the organization because we’re giving our attention to the most critical parts of the organization. So if the C-suite is committed to succession planning and committed to increasing the life-span of the company, but has limited resources, we can choose where to apply our time and attention.

Question 3

The third question is, “What is your position on hi-po’s versus up-leveling the whole organization?” Hi-po stands for “high potential” employees. I’ve worked with many companies that will put all their eggs in a few baskets, as opposed to increasing the capabilities of the whole organization. Personally, I’m not a fan of hi-po’s I believe that you get much more bang for your buck by up-leveling the whole organization. So, rather than giving six or twelve people “leadership skills,” such as how to be a better communicator, better collaborator, or how to think more critically, etc. why not develop those skills in everybody? If a company is committed to succession planning, they are, by default, committed to leadership development; so why not include everyone in up-leveling their capabilities? At The Training Doctor, we have all sorts of ways of doing this efficiently and economically; drop me a line if you’d like to learn more. For now, let’s stay focused on succession planning and whether your company is “in” or “out.”

To reach the “finish line” of succession planning you must be prepared to “go the distance.” These three questions can help you to assess your company’s commitment to, and stamina for, the process.

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn